ALL GIRLS EQUALLY ATTRACTIVE

As I have just intimated, a modern romantic lover would not exchange a beloved beggar-maid for an heiress or princess; nor would he give her for a dozen other girls, however charming, and with permission to marry them all.  Now if romantic love had always existed, the lower races would have the same violent and exclusive preference for individuals.  But what are the facts?  I assert, without fear of contradiction from any one familiar with anthropological literature, that a savage or barbarian, be he Australian, African, American, or Asiatic, would laugh at the idea of refusing to exchange one woman for a dozen others equally young and attractive.  It is not necessary to descend to the lowest savages to find corroboration of this view.  Dr. Zoeller, an unusually intelligent and trustworthy observer, says, in one of his volumes on German Africa (III., 70-71), that

“on the whole no distinction whatever is made between woman and woman, between the good-looking and the ugly, the intelligent and the stupid ones.  In all my African experiences I have never heard of a single young man or woman who conceived a violent passion for a particular individual of the opposite sex.”

So in other parts of Africa.  The natives of Borgou, we are told by R. and J. Lander, marry with perfect indifference.  “A man takes no more thought about choosing a wife than he does in picking a head of wheat.”  Among the Kaffirs, says Fritsch (112) it may occur that a man has an inclination toward a particular girl; but he adds that “in such cases the suitor is obliged to pay several oxen more than is customary, and as he usually takes cattle more to heart than women, such cases are rare;” and though, when he has several wives, he may have a favorite, the attachment to her is shallow and transient, for she is at any moment liable to displacement by a new-comer.  Among the Hottentots at Angra Pequena, when a man covets a girl he goes to her hut, prepares a cup of coffee and hands it to her without saying a word.  If she drinks half of it, he knows the answer is Yes.  “If she refuses to touch the coffee, the suitor is not specially grieved, but proceeds to another hut to try his luck again in the same way.”  (Ploss, I., 454.)

Of the Fijians Williams (148) says:  “Too commonly there is no express feeling of connubial bliss, men speak of ‘our women’ and women of ’our men’ without any distinctive preference being apparent.”  Catlin, speaking (70-71) of the matrimonial arrangements of the Pawnee Indians, says that daughters are held as legitimate merchandise, and, as a rule, accept the situation “with the apathy of the race.”  A man who advertised for a wife would hardly be accused of individual preference or anything else indicating love.  From a remark made by George Gibbs (197) we may infer that the Indians of Oregon and Washington used to advertise for wives, in their own fashion: